How To Rethink Engagement and Learning To Fuel Success: A Chart 106 Session Recap

(02:23) Setting clear learning expectations is crucial for creating a learning-first approach.
(06:33) A needs assessment helps design intentional training programs that meet employees where they are.
(10:07) Recognition programs reward employees and foster a sense of community.
(12:51) Continuous learning encourages employees to explore other roles within the organization, aiding career growth.
(18:34) Measuring L&D impact is critical; it shows up in metrics like retention, sales performance and compliance rates.
(25:10) Creating a culture of empathy at every level enhances engagement and satisfaction.
(30:17) Feedback loops improve L&D programs by aligning with employee needs and enhancing engagement.
(34:08) Leveraging technology, like gamification, keeps employees engaged in continuous learning.

• How to Rethink Engagement & Learning to Fuel Success
• Chart 106 Conference

Brittany McCulley: If you aren't setting expectations and being very clear, you're really setting yourself up for failure.

Evan Melick: Hey y'all! Welcome to Wise Tales. In August, Wisetail was privileged to attend Chart 106 in Chicago. Wisetail President Ali Knapp and Jay Hartwig, Director of People and Retention at Fox Restaurant Concepts, hosted a session titled, How to Rethink Engagement and Learning to Feel Success. In fact, podcast episode three features Jay talking about pairing people with technology. A link to that episode will be in the show notes here. Back to Chart ... we wanted to hear from the experts.

During the session each table was given a "what keeps you up at night?" question to solicit insights and feedback that could be shared with a broader learning and development community. I am honored to be joined by my esteemed Wisetail colleagues today that attended Chart. Wisetail President, Ali Knapp, who you might recognize from our first Wise Tales episode on innovation, Director of Sales, Kat Claypool; Account Executive, Max McGee, and Account Manager, Brittany McCauley. Today, we will be talking through the results of those table conversations and provide some ideas for what you can do today to make a difference tomorrow. Ali, I'll turn it over to you a little bit to talk about what we took away overall from that meeting.

Ali Knapp: All right. Thanks, Evan, and happy to be here to share kind of an overview and some of the insights that we learned. I think first starting off, overarching, it was really about creating a learning-first approach within your organization and creating that learning-first approach had specific areas that were themes that supported it. 

I think starting out the first piece was around setting clear learning expectations and what does that mean? It's actually a lot more simple than what we may think in this space. It's really about clarity, making sure that the learners know what is expected from them, when that is expected, and what they're supposed to take away from that overall learning experience.

So that first piece was just, again, around setting clear learning expectations. Another theme that carried through was around continuous learning and this really itself through meeting learners where they were in their journey. That was around creating clear learning paths, but then also having some of the non structured learning approaches for employees.

Really, one highlight that kind of came up in the conversation a lot was supporting learners beyond what was specific to their role and what was needed in their role. Oftentimes it was creating more trust within the organization and really helping the organization and the individual feel as though there was that approach of supporting growth with individuals outside of their company and really just growth within them as individuals, not just as employees.

The third piece that I would say was a strong takeaway was the tailored learning approach. We live in a world where everything just feels, can feel really impersonal, and we get tons of emails every day, that are, you know, not personal to us as individuals. We get spam, a lot of marketing, all of that is happening, but what we tend to resonate more with is something that's tailored specifically for us and if we're able to weave this into our learning experience with employees, that goes a really long way. It can be done in a lot of different ways, but we'll kind of dive into that a little bit further today. Lastly, it's really around technology as a support. So technology isn't a singular way to solve for a learning first approach or for employee engagement in general, but technology supports these efforts, right? Technology can help us to filter and have a very defined audience segmentation. It can help free up time and space to focus on what really matters, which is building those humanized learning experiences and it can operationalize some of the aspects that we need regularly in our day to day until those become learned or known. It can help personalize at scale. It can help with our tracking to showcase numbers and understand really our return on investment for learning and some of those pieces, but it's really how does technology support, that overarching piece? Those are kind of a few of the takeaways that we had from the conversation and looking forward to dive into a little bit more detail in some of those areas.

Evan Melick: I think that is fantastic and really again, a huge plug for the conversation with Jay in the previous podcast ... really that intersection, that pairing of the human and technology component and Wisetail is a technology leader in the learning and development space for sure. But I think it sounds like you recognize, and we learned, from those table conversations that they are not mutually exclusive and need to work in collaboration to create those best experiences for employees and businesses.

Ali Knapp: Absolutely.

Evan Melick: So I am going to just take a minute and talk about one of the conversation topics which was really around best practices in designing an intentional training program. Some of the things that we heard during the table discussion were the necessity of creating a needs assessment and so what this can look like is a survey that gathers feedback, making sure to secure that buy in from stakeholders through collaboration.

I want to really call out, part of a conversation that I was fortunate enough to have with Jason from Arrow Up Training, which was episode two of our podcast but really talking about how to solicit feedback from those end users, making sure you are meeting them where they are, and so that can look like different departments that can look like.

Actual learners using the language that they use on a day to day basis. You don't want to use four syllable words. Although, I do enjoy a four syllable word. If your employees are not actually using those words in the day to day it needs to be accessible, it needs to really resonate in order to create that learning experience. 

A second thing was about working backwards and so looking for those desired outcomes and then creating and implementing an incremental rollout with small manageable releases. We hear about this a lot on the technology development side, that iterative development, that incremental delivery. But I don't know that we oftentimes consider that when it comes to learning and development programs. 

What this allows you to do is really ensure you're meeting those marks, making sure that what you're delivering is resonating, is reliable, and is getting into the hands of learners when they most need it. Those manageable releases allow L& D leaders, specifically, to create experiences that aren't overwhelming for themselves, but also acknowledge that those learning things can be overwhelming for learners at the end of the day, too.

Third, but I don't think that this is an insignificant call out, is developing a business case. What this looks like is making sure that a timeline and a communication plan Is created early in the process. This will ensure, hopefully, buy in from across the organization. There is nothing worse than being an L&D leader and having a training program that you spent. 

So much time and lovingly curated and created just fall flat and getting that early buy in through that business case, through making sure all of your stakeholders have what they need at the ready will create that successful experience. Finally, alongside the business case is making sure those measurements of success KPIs are in place so you're able to recognize those achievements.

Creating a risk analysis early in the process will help you understand where you've got opportunities for some of those pitfalls. If you can account for those early. then it will create an experience that hopefully will be a resounding success. 

Max, I want to turn it over to you for a second. One of the things Ali talked about in the introduction was really about fostering a culture of continuous learning. How exactly can we do that and how does that show up in the real world?

Max McGee: That is a great question, Evan, and thank you for kicking it over. There are many different ways that you can make that happen and at my table, specifically, what we talked about was developing recognition programs that will reward employees for achieving different levels of training. We think recognizing employees is a great way to just build the community and realize the talent that you have within your team member base. 

On top of that, it's a great segue to make learning enjoyable and desirable. We want to get, or companies want to get, their users back into the site for many different reasons, whether it's to train, whether it's to educate, whether it's to continue to train and educate, or just to communicate, and that's what you want throughout the entire process. 

You want to have the engagement piece to where they're desiring to get back into the LMS or the training platform, to continue to engage and communicate. Day in and day out, whatever it might be. On top of that, you also would like to have a blended approach to ensure buy in from leadership. So you want to get some hands on experience ensuring that your users are retaining that information and continuing to grow and develop into managerial leadership roles because in the restaurant world, hiring from within is just such a huge advantage, you know, to the organization. 

And what I've seen with some of our existing clients with what we talked about, at the round table is having some fun manager and training programs because when you start off in the restaurant space as, you know, a 19, 20 year old individual, you really don't know what the next step is or how you're gonna get to that general manager level. 

So creating something within the LMS is a huge advantage to that because they can know what step one is, what step two is, step three, to get to that general manager leadership role. So having some sort of approach to that is a huge advantage, to those day one users. Lastly, I would say is just require every level of the organization to go through some sort of training so that they can, you know, support what the team members are doing, but also execute it on well, because there's really no reason that you shouldn't continue to educate yourself on any aspect of the restaurant or just in managerial spaces as well. So really having it from the day one employees up until, you know, the year 10, 15 employees just to, have that continued education.

I know that's a lot , but that's what I would say to help continue to grow and train from your team members.

Evan Melick: I think that's really interesting. Wisetail conducted a survey and discovered that 32 percent of respondents in the survey are very likely to learn different skill sets not related to their current role to help further their career. So it sounds like creating this culture of continuous learning is a way to not only satisfy your employees right now, but to build that loyalty as it exists within an organization.

Max McGee: I agree with that Evan because it can also give them the experience to where they don't have to stay in one lane. You know, if there are other areas of the organization that they want to take a look into, you can have that material listed on the LMS that they can go pick and choose and get their feet wet in other areas of expertise and maybe it's something that they do, continue to educate on and make a little career switch while, you know, while they're inside the organization.
I think that's a great example of just having available content ready to go for the user base too.

Evan Melick: Ali, one of the things that I asked you about based on your previous conversation was really that pairing of technology and the human component. I have a little bit different twist I want to throw at you. How can you utilize technology within your training program to enhance engagement of your learners?

Ali Knapp: Yes, so I think you can use technology to enhance engagement with your learners if you're creating it as a hub for a place that employees need and a place that employees want. I know that that's probably a lot easier said than done, right? But what are some of those tangible pieces that can be done to move in that direction? 

One could be weekly communications that help employees know exactly what's going on with the organization and maybe where they're sitting within the organization and giving them those weekly hits, that make them feel a little bit part of the organization. Another piece that you could look at to really enhance the engagement using technology could be some type of gamification woven into all of that. 

So someone's coming back into the system regularly for that information that they need and because they want to be there and then rewarding them for that, you know? Max hit a bit on recognition and that can weave into that gamification piece and a lot of times the technology that you have can support that centralized hub that keeps everyone moving in the same direction, can look like pieces beyond your training and learning that could be links that you need to access other systems. 

It could be standard operating procedures that you need to do your day to day role, it could look like that. What we hit up at the beginning of this, podcast, right, which is, that continued learning that is beyond what you need to do in your role, but just makes you as an individual a better person, helps you grow as an individual, not just as an employee, right? 

I could be in there and have the ability to access that material as well. The last piece that I would like to hit on is feedback, right? To make a hub successful and be a place that you want to go for that information and also need to go to get that information. If I'm asked, how this can be better, what could I see in this hub that could make me, you know, have the resources I need to do my job in a better way. If I'm asked for that feedback piece, that continual feedback piece allows us to create a stronger technology hub for the individuals using it every day.

Evan Melick: I think that an interesting part to me is really about that feedback because it goes alongside really nicely that intentionality with, an L& D initiative and making sure that we're incorporating those end users in everything that we do and whether it's pivoting based on well, maybe more challenging feedback, right?

A thing hasn't landed well, or nobody speaks that way, or if it's just not showing up in an engaging sort of way and we do a lot at Wisetail with interactive content and making sure that we're incorporating all of the bits and bytes to, create those really great learning experiences. From a technology perspective, making sure that you have a technology supportive of collecting that feedback is probably a pretty important component.

Ali Knapp: Yes, absolutely.

Evan Melick: One of the things that we know to be true is that people like to measure results and by people, I mean organizations. They like to know that their investments are seeing the return that they want to see. My guess is Kat, I'm going to lean on you a little bit here. My guess is from a sales perspective, we oftentimes hear those types of conversations and questions coming from prospects. We also hear those questions and conversations coming from our existing clients. How do we actually measure the impact of what we do from an L&D perspective?

Kat Claypool: Thanks, Evan. This was a very interesting question to hear the responses to, because one, it came with a lot of enthusiasm and passion from the folks who were at our roundtable, and I think that's true for every question. The people who were in there are truly the experts working hard to help each other, get better within learning and development. When we look at why we ask this question, how can you measure the impact of L&D initiatives? There are a couple of reasons why you might want to do that. The reason we typically hear on the sales side of things is we need budget. How can we measure this and prove this? Because we need to prove out the ROI of why we need to buy this piece of technology. 

On Brittany's side, the account management side, it could be showing success, proving out the ROI later down the line when you have that vendor relationship. So the responses were fascinating and I think the very first piece that encapsulates the whole conversation is that learning and development shows up in every metric. 

When I heard that, like, all right, we know the big ones. Ali just hit on engagement, right? We can track the engagement that we're seeing in a platform, how folks are utilizing it. The other two big ones that folks tend to lean on are looking at retention and on the opposite side of that, turnover.

So are we keeping our folks? Are they really investing in their learning journey here and is that impactful? The next piece was, peeling back a bit of the layer of the onion, which is really measuring guest satisfaction. So we know that if we go to a restaurant, for example, we might get a survey that asks, how'd we do?

Thumbs up, thumbs down. How was the food? Whatever it might be. Measuring that satisfaction and the surveys can lead to a lot of insights based on the questions being So a few things that we could tie L&D to are looking at brand standards, but further than that, waste reduction, because mistakes are costly.

So if our folks are not trained properly or have easy access to a recipe, and we're seeing a high cost in ingredients, in food waste, then we probably need to focus on training better. And that's a direct initiative piece that we can tie to an L&D initiative. That was really interesting to me. I see some heads nodding, so I'm guessing that one surprised you all as well to hear. 

The big one that we love to hear about is tracking positive changes in sales performance. We often see this through LTOs. So I have a special, and oh my gosh, this special is available for this quarter and this quarter only, and I have one week to get my folks trained. How am I going to do this and to track its success of this LTO. So that's one way that we can also see a tie between L&D initiatives and success. Lastly, I think is a bit of the standard, which is completion rates, compliance tracking, really making sure that everyone is learning what they need to learn and is completing it in a timely manner. That can really lead, if we want to get in the weeds of the ROI. So looking at time to value of an employee and getting them fully capable in their job to run solo and do what they need to do day in and day out.

One of our clients specifically, they were able to take their onboarding timeframe from about 22 and a half days to under five days for a new employee to be able to go and do the job on their own. That has a massive impact to the bottom line at the end of the day. So the things that we think and we hear on our side as a vendor were absolutely confirmed in the round tables and even a couple layers that I don't know we were expecting to hear.

Evan Melick: It sounds like there are multiple ways, right, to measure return on investment of L&D programs. Some of them a little more tangible, like you talked about completions, you talked about compliance tracking, all of those things, but probably those intangibles too. So going back to creating a business case, making sure initiatives target and track towards some of the more ancillary or adjacent metrics, that really describe how those behaviors change over time is an important component to consider when you're contemplating those initiatives.

Kat Claypool: Absolutely and the folks that were in our session couldn't agree with that summary more.

Evan Melick: Well, I certainly hope they're all listening to this today. Giving a standing ovation. Thank you so much, Kat. One of the keys to ongoing success for organizations is the cultural piece, right? Is creating a culture where people want to work. We've heard this in all of our conversations on the podcast thus far with our previous guests is really fostering an environment where people feel not only engaged, Ali, to the point where we were talking about technology earlier, but also that they feel supported.

So, Brittany, I'm going to hand this one over to you. What can you highlight for us for those best practices that create a supportive learning environment for learners?

Brittany McCulley: Yeah, thank you, Evan. Some of the best practices that we heard about how to foster a supportive learning environment, the number one was empathy at every step. I think we all know that empathy in our personal life goes a long way, but it has massive impact in our work environment. 

It affects your people, your organization, overall culture. I know personally that when my manager meets me where I'm at, puts herself in my shoes and really understands me, I feel like a human. I'm not another bee in the hive. I feel valued and respected and because of that, I'm going to work harder. I'm going to be a better employee. 

That has a massive trickle down effect. If she's treating me that way, I'm going to treat my co workers that way and then in turn, we're treating our clients that way. We're creating that wonderful client experience. So, empathy at the start is so huge. It carries all the way through. I think that's how, at least for Wisetail, we create that amazing client experience because our culture is so amazing.

The other thing that we heard was ensuring clear communication, setting expectations, and using trainers who understand the why. As Ali mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, giving your employees the what, the why, and the when is so important. I think we've all seen that quote floating around LinkedIn, that is, unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments. 

If you aren't setting expectations and being very clear, you're really setting yourself up for failure. You might be frustrated with your employees because they're not meeting these metrics, but you didn't tell them about them, so it's hard to get there. the other thing that we heard about was tailoring an approach to meet your learners where they are, providing an environment that allows for mistakes and encourages the right mindset. 

We all know we learn from failure, so fostering that and making sure that your employees know that is so huge. We never get it right the first time, so creating a growth mindset within your company and in your culture is so important. Great. I think we all know that from just every experience in life.

You got to take resilience into play and really have a growth mindset and sometimes adults don't know that. So teaching that and taking the time to really show that to your employees is huge. Again, that'll trickle down with how you present yourself to your coworkers and your clients. Creating a conducive learning environment, both physically and emotionally, while reinforcing core values and culture.

I think we see a lot of companies who say they have a great culture and that they and kindness, but then you get into the workplace and you don't see it on the walls, you don't see it on people's faces, so ensuring that you're really putting The words into play is so big. if you're wanting an employee recognition program, make sure it's front of page, you know, you can log into a YSL LMS and you see our recognition messages between employees.

So we know that the culture that we heard in our first interview is live and in action, right when we log into our own onboarding experience. The last thing we heard is gaining buy in from leaders and others for incentives and celebrating successes public and privately. As an account manager, I get this question so often. 

How do I get my leaders to see the, the value in this recognition program, this badge program? And it's so hard to get yourself in that room, especially when they don't see What you're doing every day, you recognize that your people want to see that they're valuable and they're respected and something as simple as a badge to badge peer program.

Again, something that Wisetail does is so huge, but it's hard to get your leaders in the room to see it. So finding a way to get your leaders in the room, if that's in the support from your vendor, like as an account manager, I'm happy to have a call with them and show them that. So finding the tools or the people that you need to prove it, is really huge. Then also back to celebrating successes publicly and privately. Promotions, birthdays, anniversaries. They seem so simple, but when you shout them out publicly, it makes somebody feel valued and respected. And again, it's creating that culture. And when you see people do that, And a public channel like Slack or on your LMS, you're going to do it privately more often.

You can say, hey, I saw that you worked so hard on the RFP and you met that deadline a short time. I'm so proud of you. You're doing awesome and it's just creating again, that culture to really celebrate each other.

Evan Melick: I just want to give a quick call back to that empathy piece, Brittany. I think you stated that really, really well because I think it is contagious, right and we just heard Kat talk about guest satisfaction. So if we can create a learning environment and a supportive learning environment, it has such a long tail effect, not only for the organization and all of the employees and all of the leaders, but also for those guests at the end of the day. I think all of our goals is to extend those empathetic experiences all the way through to those guest experiences.

Brittany McCulley: Absolutely.

Evan Melick: I just want to do a really quick recap and highlight reel for maybe anyone who has fast forwarded through this entire thing. Key takeaways. I think a couple of things were highlighted throughout this conversation. Making sure that an intentional learning program has a needs assessment associated, a business case associated. 

Highlight those KPIs and those success measures early and often. Another thing that came out is buy in. Whether it's from other department leads or other people within the organization as well as those frontline employees, making sure that buy in, again, early and often. Asking for feedback. Our L&D initiatives are really premised on the fact that people are going to invest time and energy to learn these things.

If we're not collecting that feedback and incorporating it in everything that we do, then we're going to fall flat every single time, which, as we talked about a couple of different places here, has a longer tail impact than just not doing well in that one, initiative. And finally, something that Brittany called out at the very end, celebrating successes publicly. We know that making sure we tell our employees, our frontline workers, our peers, our bosses, when they're doing a job well done, will create that experience of working harder, exactly as was showcased during this conversation, of giving more, of doing better every single day.

And, you know, that's what Wise Tales is all about, is doing one thing today to make a better tomorrow. My last question for y'all that we ask in every Wise Tales podcast, if you were to design your own bumper sticker, what would it say and why? We already heard from Ali during our very first podcast here at Wise Tales, but I'm curious if you have another bumper sticker you want to highlight for us.

Ali Knapp: I gave this a little bit of thought because I was thinking it may be a question, and asked again. I think I have a very similar response in that I think bumper stickers are a way to start a conversation. So I would like to have a bumper sticker, that is maybe just an object or an image or something like that gets people wondering and asking questions so that when you stop in a gas station, when you're at a grocery store, parking lot, whatever that is, that you open up a conversation that you maybe wouldn't otherwise have, based on what's on your car. That remains, I think, my answer. I am curious, Evan, you ask this question each time, and I don't think we've had the opportunity to hear your answer, so what would your bumper sticker be?

Evan Melick: I have a very clear point of view on my bumper sticker and I think it applies to driving as well as to life. My bumper sticker would be assume positive intent. And I, I truly believe that, that offering grace and offering understanding and empathy and compassion is a way that we can make every day better. So, even those people who don't use turn signals or who maybe inadvertently cut you off or intentionally, I don't know, not going to presume I understand, but yes, assume positive intent.

Ali Knapp: I love it.

Evan Melick: Max, I'm really curious about your bumper sticker.

Max McGee: Thank you, Evan. It's a great segue into mine because you talked about people getting cut off and maybe not the best drivers, so mine wouldn't say much, but what I was thinking is it would be a band aid sticker, or maybe somebody who got a little, little ding on their back bumper, or I guess anywhere on the car, it doesn't have to just be on the back, and it would be a sticker that you would put over a little bit of damage and it would just say ouch or something along those lines because I've done it, you know, maybe once not into a car... more like a tree or a house but, I would have loved to have that sticker on one of my much older cars that I didn't really want to get fixed and the sticker would have cost, you know, eight dollars and would have essentially saved me some money for fixing. So that's where my mind went, when thinking about a bumper sticker.

Evan Melick: That's fantastic. It is just a highlight acceptance and acknowledgement. Bumps and bruises happen, right?

Max McGee: Exactly, yes. Maybe, you know, the shop's a little bit booked, so you gotta put the band aid on to save some time until you're ready for the full facelift. So yes, I agree.

Evan Melick: That's fantastic. Brittany, what about you?

Brittany McCulley: Mine is similar to yours, Evan, both driving and in life. It's not that serious. You're people driving faster in a hurry. It's not that serious. You're gonna get there, but also in life too. I think I definitely overthink everything all the time and I have to remind myself it's not that serious. Relax. It's gonna be okay. You're gonna get there, whether it's literally driving or like an actual life goal.

Evan Melick: So, it sounds like it's not that serious, coupled with a bandage. Perfect! It's like a twofer combo. Kat, last but certainly not least.

Kat Claypool: I feel like y'all are gonna laugh at this but my general philosophy in life is to always be yourself, whether you're at work, whether you're with your family, to be your true, authentic self. This is a major principle within the sales team at Wisetail, is to not show up and be a robot, to be who you are.

We have one account executive who says cool beans all the time, and it is so authentically her. Max will probably talk to you about the Cleveland Browns so when we're at Chart and we see all of our friends and our acquaintances there and they're being their true authentic selves, it is the most fun. Like when our friend Jay went up and sang Creep by Radiohead at the live band karaoke. So my bumper sticker, which encompasses my life philosophy, would be stay spicy.

Evan Melick: Question. Do you feel like you are spicy? Or are you encouraging more spice in life?

Kat Claypool: A little bit of both, a bit on the driving side too. Spice it up a little. You don't have to make a full stop if no one's there. Keep going.

Evan Melick: Oh my gosh, that is so fantastic. So, I want to thank each and every one of you for the time today. I know we're all busy. I want to thank you all for being my friends. My partners in crime attending Chart and doing all of the amazing things that we do every single day as well as supporting all of those organizations out there.

We could not do it without you and y'all are what makes Wisetail. So thank you so much and for our listeners, thank you for listening to another episode of Wise Tales.